Francine Volker

Francine Volker was an associate of Colin Butler's public relations firm during the 1980s. In 1987, Butler hired Volker to help him ruin his rival, the Labour MP Eddie Wells, by joining his team as a researcher. Volker fabricated a scandal involving Butler and the Conservative lobbyists; she claimed that 50 Tory MPs were on the take of lobbying groups. Before Wells could level his accusations at Butler in the House of Commons, he discovered that Volker had been an agent of Butler for the entire time, and he was forced to humiliatingly retract his report rather than present it and be sued for slander. The scandal ruined Wells' career, and he died of a heart attack that same year.